My name is Lyle, and I am a Ham Radio operator. My station is licensed by the FCC, and my callsign is WE9R. I have been licensed since 1975 (wow, 50 years!) my previous calls were WN9QCY and WB9QCY. I hold an Extra class license. By definition, this is a hobby and the radio communications cannot be use for any 'professional' benefit - you are not allowed to use Ham Radio communications to make a profit.
This hobby covers many different aspects of radio communications. My personal interest includes working DX (DX is other countries) and seeing how many different countries I can talk to on the various frequency bands, talking to people on VHF (Very High Frequencies) which require specific atmospheric conditions to communicate, building and maintaining my station, radio Contesting, and Antenna Analysis.
There are currently approximately 340 DX "Countries" as defined by ARRL (American Radio Relay League, which manages the awards program). These range from large countries such as USA, China, and Russia, and very small and remote islands such as Bouvet, Hawaii, and Crozet. There are many sets of frequencies (Bands) to operate on, and each Band has different propagation characteristics which change with time of day, sunspots, and atmospheric conditions. I currently have a total of 2839 confirmed countries on 10 Bands (160 - 6 meters)
Even in the category of VHF communications, there are many aspects of the hobby. I have 2 'Repeaters' that I operate. Repeaters allow person-to-person voice communications using hand-held (walkie-talkie) type radios, Mobile (automobile-mounted), and base station radios. Most VHF communications is roughly line-of-sight using normal propagation. However, weak signal VHF communications uses anomalous propagation modes to achieve contacts. Some of these include Sparodic-E (intermittent reflections of radio signals off of the E-layer of the atmosphere), Monbounce (reflections off of the moon), Aurora (Reflection of signals off of Aurora-ionized atmosphere), and Meteor Scatter (reflection off of ionized meteor trails). This aspect of the hobby is interesting because it seems like such a weird phenomenon - it is hard to believe radio signals could be reflected / refracted off of these items. It is often referred to as Weak-Signal modes because the received signal are typically very small due to the inefficient propagation.
For the HF portion of my station, I operate a Elecraft K4 radio and Elecraft KPA1500 amplifier on 160 - 6 meters, and have a Elecraft K3 as a backup radio. My antennas are Shunt Fed tower for 160M, Winter-only 4-square on 80M, and Yagi antennas on 40-6M. Pictures will be posted soon.
On VHF, I have an Icom IC-9700 transceiver for 144Mhz, 432Mhz, and 1296 Mhz. I also have a transverter for 220 Mhz that need to figure out (recently purchased). I need to install antennas for 1296 Hz and 220 Mhz.
Radio Contesting is the sport of contacting as many other Ham Radio operators in a designated amount of time, usually 4 hours - 48 hours, with specific modes and power levels. Awards for having a high score in a contest range from Plaques to "Certificates Suitable for Framing". I have earned 9 plaques, and these typically require both dedication to operate most of the contest (Large BIC, or Butt In Chair time) as well as a considerable amount of luck and decent antennas. (Pictures coming of plaques). There are many types of contests, but the ones that interest me the most are DX-contests - you talk to as many stations in countries other than the one you live in, and using Morse Code (CW) or Voice (Phone) modes. It is not unusual to talk to over 1000 people during a weekend who are in over 100 countries.